


Perfect Timing

by ami_ven



Series: Lantea Fire Station [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Firefighters, Community: mcsheplets, Episode: s06e19 The Changeling, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 20:23:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2705519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ami_ven/pseuds/ami_ven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is a firefighter who just moved to Hawaii and Rodney is a visiting scientist who just got rescued from a burning lab. (AU, part of SG-1's firemen!verse)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect Timing

**Author's Note:**

> written for LJ community "mcsheplets" prompt #057 "just in time"

John had only just slid under the chassis of the vintage 1972 fire engine they used for parades and open houses, when he heard footsteps on the concrete floor of the garage. 

He slid back out again and grabbed a rag to wipe his hands, “What can I do for you?”

“Ah,” said the man. He had broad shoulders, and bright blue eyes that clashed horribly with the lurid yellow-and-orange shirt he was wearing— tourists who made the day-trip from Oahu to Lantea often wore ‘Hawaiian’ shirts, but this was the worst one yet. “I’m looking for John Sheppard.”

“Yeah?” said John.

He’d moved to Lantea because it was a place where people wouldn’t be looking for him, and because it was the only fire department willing to hire him after his black mark. 

Plus, he’d always wanted to learn how to surf.

“Yes,” said the man. He picked at a large bandage covering most of his left forearm and John recognized him just as he said, “McKay. Dr. Rodney McKay. I was here for the conference on nanotechnology...”

“Right,” said John.

The way Dr. Z had been talking about it the week before, it had been less like an academic conference and more like a jam session with science instead of music, which probably explained how that much alcohol had been left near a lit Bunsen burner and burned down the whole lab.

“Right,” McKay repeated.

“Hey, you’re looking better,” said John.

McKay picked at his bandage again. “I _am_ better. So, um, thank you. I mean, normally, I wouldn’t put much stock in anything said by someone in the medical profession, but the doctors all said that with all the chemicals around when the fire started, if you had been even a minute later in pulling me out of there, I might have suffered serious brain damage. And that might not seem so horrible to you, all things considered, but I’m a genius, and my brain is pretty much all I have going for me, so… Thanks.”

“Just doing my job,” John said, automatically.

When he closed his eyes, he could still taste the acrid chemicals in the smoke, even through his gear. It had been the first fire he’d been called to since moving to the island— not counting old Mrs. Womack, who set fire to her stove every other week, but only because she liked Ronon coming straight from the beach to put it out— and John hadn’t been as ready as he’d thought. When he had found McKay, slumped in front of an open access panel, he’d nearly had a flashback of Holland, dead in the rubble of the collapsed high-rise. But then McKay’s eyes had flickered open, blazingly blue, and the sprinklers had come on.

Later, after he’d half-dragged the semi-conscious scientist out to the waiting paramedics, John learned that the sprinkler system in Dr. Z’s theoretical physics lab hadn’t worked in years, and that McKay had somehow hotwired them into the main water supply before he’d passed out. That had given John’s crew the time to put out the fire before it could spread to the warehouse next door.

John had gone to see McKay at the hospital— just checking in, so that when he wrote up his report, he could say for certain that no one had been seriously injured— and found McKay awake and apparently well enough to sit up, his back to John, having a very loud argument with Dr. Beckett about ‘voodoo quackery’. John had taken one look at those broad shoulders, those expressive hands, and fled.

“Yes, yes,” said McKay, now, and John’s eyes snapped open. “Your job. For which you are undoubtedly paid next-to-nothing. So, if… if you’re free later, could I take you to dinner, as a thank you? For saving my life, and all.”

It was very, very hard for John not to grin, but he managed it. “Yeah?” he said, innocently. “Like a date?”

“I— _No_ ,” said McKay, a little too quickly. “Like a _thank you_. At no point in our conversation did I even get the slightest idea that you were anything but a very straight, very… macho—”

“Because if it _was_ a date, I’d say yes,” John interrupted, smoothly.

McKay blinked. “Really?” he asked, sounding a little breathless, and John couldn’t keep in his grin anymore.

“I know a place that has imported beer and a killer view of the sunset.”

“Yes, great, that’s… sunset?”

John’s grin broadened. “Meet me here at seven.”

McKay held out a business card, and John made sure their fingers brushed when he took it. On the back was a phone number, scrawled in pencil.

“My cell,” said Rodney, unnecessarily.

“Seven, McKay,” John repeated. “Or…” He glanced down at the card. “Do physicists know how to fix a forty-year-old carburetor?”

“This one does,” said Rodney, all his awkwardness replaced with brash confidence. “I can fix anything.”

They ended up missing the sunset and the beer, but John thought that the morning light, sliding through his bedroom window and over Rodney’s pale, sturdy shoulders, was even better.

THE END


End file.
